Joy and Sorrow are Inseparable
by defectueux
Summary: I started writing this last year and simply couldn't finish it. I hit a dead end. I can't really explain why I couldn't continue with it, but the plots i conjured just didn't measure up. I'm going to leave it up, just in case one day I happen upon a plot that meets my standards. Ciao for now:*
1. I

**Chapter 1. Internal Strife.**

The night was the coldest of the year, and the algid air contained an immense amount of frigidity. Infinitesimal white flakes fell indolently to the ground that had been hitherto covered with snow. The wind was ice, and the sky above was starless and sable. The commodious school stood silhouetted in a silvery fog as she walked noiselessly down the stone steps, a bag slung over her shoulder and her heart quivering with a certain anxiety that could only be caused by indecision. But she had chosen not to accredit her heartache to such a facile matter as that, just as she chose to affirm the fact that she had made a consummate choice. She held her chin high, for no one else but herself. Although the ground was benumbing to the average skin, she walked barefooted down the frosted steps, letting the cold overcome her tingling feet. Her shoes dangled lightly from her fingertips. Every breath she took formed a cloud of water vapor in front of her frost bitten cheeks that were tinged red from the cold. The most diminutive of sounds caught her attention, and she whipped her head around, causing her long blonde hair to whip around with it. The area around her appeared uninhabited, but she stayed rooted to the spot at the bottom of the last staircase. She sighed a soft and deliberate sigh, bringing her hand to her forehead, and breathed only a few barley intelligible words, as if talking to herself. "Joy and sorrow are inseparable…"

"You're going to quote Khalil Gibran?" The humor that was supposed to be present in the comment was eerily absent, as a young man, about 16 years of age, stepped out from behind a tall oak tree. His soft brown hair was in disarray and his light grey eyes were tired from the unauthorized late night football practice. When she didn't respond or look up at him, he began to talk again. "Angelina, please." His voice cracked as he uttered these words at a barley audible volume. He walked over slowly, stopping only inches away from her. She shook her head violently. "Joy and sorrow are inseparable," she reiterated. "How am I suppose to find joy if I don't go through certain sorrows to get there?" She avoided his eyes, knowing full well that if she concentrated too hard on the destroyed look on his face her confident facade would crumble.

"You have joy." He stated bluntly.

"I have content, not joy." She responded.

"You have a family that loves you." He said, his voice dropping an octave.

"I have a family that judges me, and expects me to be perfect."

"You have friends that care for you." He continued, his voice still quieting with every statement. It seemed he had come up with a never ending list why Angelina should stay.

"I do," was her only response to this. She mentally scolded herself for not have a witty repartee ready.

"You have me." He said, barley a whisper this time. He dropped his head, looking down at the ground.

"You are my best friend, and you know I love you, but-" She was cut off by a voice laden with anger and spite. A voice that contained so much animosity, and hurt that it sliced the brumal air and sent a sickening feeling deep into Angelina's very being.

"You love _him _more," he completed her thought. She was unable to answer for a few moments. She stood, watching the white cloud caused by her breath slowly disappear and reappear and tracing minuscule patterns on the back of her hand with her fingertips. The silent moments proved to be extremely awkward and agonizing. She finally found her voice and took a deep breath before speaking.

"I love him _differently._" She enunciated each syllable, thinking every word through thoroughly before she said it. At this point, she was almost pleading with him to let her go. But his face remained unchanged. His features seemed permanently etched with enmity and distress.

"Your family will never forgive you." He said, choosing to ignore what Angelina had just responded. He didn't believe it, it was mediocre compared to the feelings welling up inside his broken heart.

"And that's something I am prepared to live with," she lied. She knew she wasn't prepared for that above everything else. Her parent's, the most prideful of people, would be devastated when they found out. They had sent her to Dunwood, an isolated boarding school in London, to give her the most incomparable education possible when she was 8. And it had done so thoroughly in the 8 years she had been there, but she needed to get away from the exorbitant amount of people watching her every move. She loved her school and her friends and even her predominating family, but, because of her last name she was the target of all gossip when she would occasionally slip up. Her family was extremely proud and had worked hard to maintain the legendary family reputation. That is what everything seemed to come down to, without fail, every time. Grades below superb were simply repugnant, and would not be tolerated. Everything would always be organized to an irksome extent, and you were never to leave the house without being the epitome of supremacy. When you married, you married wealthy and illustrious, and nothing less. And that was another component, actually a very large component, that was urging Angelina to leave. Her heart belonged completely to someone her parent's would never condone there only daughter being with. What the boy standing in front of her didn't realize was that the love she felt for him, and the love she felt for this, in her parent's opinion, lesser person, were two completely different kinds of passion. They were antagonistic, and precisely inimical. They were equal in every way possible, but exact opposites of each other, and this boy was too moronic to stop and think about it from her perspective.

"I'll never forgive you." His statement was grave, and clear. The words cut deep into Angelina's heart, causing an immeasurable amount of pain and leaving a wound so momentous she didn't know if it could ever be repaired. Without warning, the warm salty symbols of despondency graced her eyes, and flowed wildly down her face. Skipping right over the tingling sensation you get behind your eyelids and the choking feeling in your throat that served as warning before tears were about to fall. It was astonishing how these four words were able to so successfully mutilate the carefully woven facade of complete confidence and utter indifference. Just those four words escaping his thin, cold lips in a tone of such desperation and woe as well as undeniably forced malevolence had sent her carefully constructed wall crashing down in a most devastating manor, leaving nothing but broken parts and useless debris behind.

When he looked up to see the unmitigated beauty that so often caught his breath marred by tears, his whole mind was thrown into utter chaos. The tears that fell hadn't made her resplendence lessen, instead it had enhanced it to a point where it was astoundingly bitter sweet to watch the relentless tears caress her porcelain skin. He knew the words he was saying to her were no more truthful than the fables read to little children at bead time. These words and actions were his last feeble attempts to keep his _sanity _with him, and were being done out of pure desperation. Ever since he had met Angelina, she had been his pillar, his foothold, his _support. _She had done nothing to hurt him and everything to alleviate him of bad circumstances. But the most important thing was she had _been there._ She had never left, never threatened, never taunted with childhood fantasies of leaving this place behind and him with it, until now. When she was gone, what had he left? A few people he could trust with nothing but his most frivolous flaws, and meaningless secrets. No one he could truly talk to, explain his real quirky dispositions to. No one to never judge him for opinionated rants he had grown so accustomed to letting out when he was around her. More important than his own demise that would inevitably be a result of her departure, was her own. Who would be her somebody to lean on? The man she claimed to have given her absolute fidelity to? _But that man can't protect her as well as I can, _He thought. She was much to fragile to be thrust into this alleged romance with no one but a contemptible fabrication of one's heart that had been overcome with this disease people to often labeled love. A horrifying thought crept through his mind, quickly taking possession of all of his thoughts. Was he the one who had fallen ill with this disease? It was quite possible he was being plagued with these delusions that this abnormally dauntless, unbreakable girl before him had become _fragile _by none other than the infamous love. She had never needed his shoulder, although it had always been there ready to be used. She was much to strong for that and somewhere in the back of his mind he knew it. Terrifying himself with the battle going on within his own mind, he was at a deadlock, with no one other than himself. He had forced the calamitous thoughts back into the depths of his own mind when she had first enlightened him about her secret ambitions, and was fighting his whole self trying to do it again. But one simple look into the tearful eyes of a pleading Angelina shattered every chance he had at dismissing the idea. Finally, the anger in his eyes vanished, and it turned into that of begging. The sincerity of the whole moment, the fact that both of them were completely vulnerable and exposed to the whole of their hidden emotions, was altogether intimidating.

"You can't do this to me, Angel." He managed a stretched, breathy plead. He didn't know what else to say.

She collected herself best she could, tears still running livid down her face. "If you really cared for me, as you say you do, you wouldn't be doing this to me." Her vocal cords had been brutally affected by her bawling state, and what was supposed to be in a serious tone came out in a rough, raspy voice.

"You don't have the right to say that. You're leaving me, remember? I'm the one getting hurt." He said, anger growing in his voice but his eyes stayed clear of all rage.

"You don't think this is hard for me?" She yelled, stepping closer so he could feel her warm breath on his freezing face.

"If it's so hard for you, don't go! No one is making you do this, you're choosing it for yourself! If it's so bloody hard, than just walk back up those steps and pretend this never happened. Because it doesn't have to happen, and you know it." He hissed at her, avoiding her eyes and looking down at the ground after he was finished.

"I can't do that…" Her voice trailed off. Her voice sounded soothing, almost therapeutic, as if she was trying to convince herself that this was her only choice. She had thought and thought, and to still be unsure was simply not acceptable.

"Exactly. So don't blame me for hurting you. You're hurting yourself." He was still looking at the ground. Angelina wished he would look up so she could look into his grey eyes, those doors straight to his soul, and tell him how sorry she was. She wanted to collapse into him, let him lead her back up the frosted stone steps, and wake up tomorrow safe in her four post bed. That was undoubtedly the easy way out. But the next night, she would regret it. She would be repulsed by herself for giving in, and would live to hate herself and whomever would try to judge her even more so because she had had the chance to escape it, and had chosen to stay subject to it. Angelina was looking down at her own shoeless feet now, noticing her tears landing in the immaculate looking white snow. She felt something warm under her chin, pulling it forward so she was looking straight into the crystal pools of emotion that had so often brought her comfort. His jaw was set in an odd sort of way, and he was searching Angelina's blank eyes. They held nothing. The brown abysses that were her eyes held no gateway to her hidden emotion, and that was something that had bewildered him from day one. The only way you could possible identify anything about this girl, was the set of her lips. An odd thing to translate ones inner feelings, yes, but it did it's job. Her lips were full, spread apart slightly to let out soft sobs that had refused to stop since they had made there first appearance of the night.

He breathed loudly out through his nose before saying something that he hadn't intended on saying at all. "Go." Something in Angelina snapped then, and she couldn't control any part of her body. Every fiber of her being told her to go before he had anymore objections, but her feet wouldn't listen. When she didn't move, he dropped his hand and gestured toward the obstacle free path ahead of them. "Go." He repeated. A sensation that was so aberrant it caught her off guard began to overcome her whole body, and mind. The unrecognizable reaction that had all of the sudden consumed her was overwhelming, to say the least, and she didn't know quite what to make of it. Without really thinking anything, words came from her mouth. Muffled by sobs and ruined by tears, her hoarse voice spoke quietly.

"Goodbye Seth." With not one glance behind her, she began walking and eventually broke into a run when her mind happened upon the option of turning back where Seth was still frozen at the bottom of the stairs.

She didn't know what she felt. It was some sort of deviant mixture of every emotion she had every felt in her whole life. When he had said go, he had given her everything she had ever wanted, and at the same time nothing. It had broken her inside to here the indifferent word, although forced it may have been, allowing her to walk away forever. Was she so desperate to be wanted that she was willing to hurt people to make them realize how much they needed her? Ironic, really, since she knew unquestionably that she was the one who needed them. He would never know how immensely formidable it had been to make the choice she had, and it's then when she remembered why she was leaving to begin with. That boy, that one who owned her affection, was waiting for her. The thought did well on its job, numbing the pain of losing someone she loved with the thought of gaining someone else. Her feet bare and her eyes still a bit wet, she focused on that one divine thought and let it lead her forward, despite her feet that were willing her to turn back. But like the adamant, stubborn girl she was, she let her mind take possession of her feet as well. But see, the heart cannot be manipulated by the mind, nor can it be evaded. That is why as she was walking away, her heart was screaming with objections, and her whole being was in turmoil.

He didn't know what he felt. It was an assortment of any and every emotion he had ever come across. When she had walked away so artlessly at his invitation to leave, his last attempts were shut down and she was gone. _She was gone._ He knew she would never come back, that much was certain, but would he ever see her again? Not even he knew how he would react if he ever came upon her again. Part of him thought he had been so deceived that he would be fuming with haughty words and be cruel to his former best friend. But the other part of him _knew _he would let her fall into him and treat her with such tenderness and brotherly love he could muster up, because that's just the affect she had on him. The way she was fascinated him to no end. Tearless and noiselessly, he walked lambasted back up the steps, trying to turn off his peregrinating thoughts. He didn't want to _feel _anymore. He was spent, and the desolation that was clinging to him tightly was subsiding as acrimony fought for it's rightful place in the situation.

The school seemed peculiarly different now, he thought as he walked through the big wooden doors. As soon as they had closed behind him, he regretted it.

In all the chaos that was his mind, he had forgotten to take the secret passage way that him and Angelina had navigated so many times before. The noise of the doors inevitable slamming echoed through the hall, and were accompanied by hurried footsteps. He was caught, and he felt too numb to even come up with a story to keep him form detention. The professor led him upstairs, back to bed, where she sternly informed him that he had 2 weeks detention to look forward to.


	2. II

**Chapter 2. Malevolent Irony.**

It had been four deplorable weeks since their disreputable daughter had gone missing. Four weeks of forlorn searching and the disbelief that came with finding out her true motives behind crushing such an acclaimed family reputation. On the second day they had received an anonymous note explaining every appalling component to Angelina's sudden dematerialization. They had found the curious little note in amongst other mail the mail man had so obliviously tossed into there mailbox, not guessing that he had just afflicted complete and utter degradation and abasement on the family. Her mother, as ashamed as she was, had been taken over by her motherly adulations that all mothers held for there child, eminently when they were grieving for there _only_ child. Not a single night did her mother fall asleep dry eyed, and she would only go to sleep after sending God her fervent prayers. But eventually she would sleep, beholden only to her husbands soothing words.

"My dear Annabella," Stephen would say. "She deserves no tears, she is gone. But this does not need to be the end. No… Tis only the beginning, my beauteous wife." He would stare directly ahead while he said this, his voice unwavering and speaking more to himself than Annabella who was debased on the very words he directed toward his own conscience. Stephen, not a merciful bone in his body, did not sleep whatsoever. He sat, eyes focused on some meager fault in the immaculately decorated room, letting devious, regrettable thoughts overpower his mind. Whenever the name Angelina would present itself in his mind, as it so often did, words like _abhor, loathsome, _or _scorn _would accompany it. He held no sympathy in the monstrously dogmatic theoretical mass that was his mind. And with the scorn, came malignant thoughts of revenge. It would prove to be deleterious to no one but the person who had so candidly extirpated his families reputation, and in turn, his very meaning in life. The craving to feel the exquisitely sweet fondle of revenge eclipsed every moral he had once believed in, and to his surprise, he felt no contritions for even uttering a thought that could harm his own kin, emotionally or physically. His thoughts were only further proof that the departure of his only daughter, his sole ambitions in the form of an effulgent young girl, had made something go abhorrently fallacious in his mind.

**ooo**

It was still cold outside, the air filled with a chilled wind and light flakes of snow drifting on soft breezes. The sky was a brilliant shade of blue, and the ethereal movement of the clouds combined to make the day look as if it was a painting: flawless, impeccable, peerless. It was a contradictory to what the day held.

Angelina arrived in London long after her departure from Dunwood. She hadn't let her mind wander much, since it seemed to always meander into something that would remind her of the current situation, even though she had an ample amount of time for thinking during train rides. Instead, she read through her battered old copy of _On Stranger Tides. _She had read it well over 10 times by now, but she still adored it. There was something about the deceiving nature of the father that felt familiar, and the whole plot was so articulate and beautiful to her. So she sat, still reading, when the train had stopped at her destination.

The weather was icy and detestable. It seemed October of 1980 had brought with it low temperatures and frosty sidewalks, accompanied by pelting snow storms. She clung to her warm jacket, holding it tight around her body and pulling the hood up over her head. Shivering, despite her attempts at warmth, she hurried down the streets of London, barley able to see where she was going for the snow was successfully blurring her vision.

She could feel the excitement welling up inside her. It was an effervescence, bouncy feeling bubbling in her stomach that made her whole being go into a state of flamboyance, despite the thoughts eating at the back of her mind. The excitement grew as she took in the city around her. She had never been in central London, despite the fact the she had lived in Southern England her whole life. It was paramount to every sight she had ever seen, even the brilliant castle-like structure of Dunwood that she had so often marveled at. Something about the way everything was- the large building towering over her, the streets alive with rushing people, the big red tour buses rolling slowly through the traffic- that intrigued her. Maybe it was the fact that it was something different from the same school that had grown much to conventional in the last 8 years. Some part of her had begun to believe the thought that she was using her rashly ephemeral romance as an excuse to leave, but she honestly didn't pay the budding flower of contrition any mind. She just wanted to get out, no matter how much it had broken her to leave Seth. An envisage overcame her as she was walking, blending perfectly with the crowd, aside from her head of tow setting contrast to the endless river of black coats but meeting it's parallel when compared with the snow. The envisage was vivid, and a possibility that had been haphazardly overlooked.

_Me and Seth could have left together. We could have gone places, together. A real best friend would have thought of that, _she thought. How horrible of a person she was to not have even considered, long before she had been claimed by a synthetic romance, going off into the world with her best friend, her brother-like figure. It was a whole new kind of stigma that was impossible to evade. She let it wash over her, knowing there was no way to halt the surge of emotions, but collected herself best as possible. She wasn't about to feel sorry for herself, pity was for the weak, the mindless. It was pointless to wallow in self condolences when it did nothing to attribute to the fixing of the thing that had caused it in the first place. Being the hard-headed, adamant person she was, she got her thoughts in order and continued down the crowded streets. No one passing her by knew the debacle going on within her head, for she masked it well with brown eyes unaffected by the drubbing, sobs strangled and killed before they reached her lips, and tears blending in with the wet flakes that were assaulting the bare skin of her face and eyelids.

A loud humming came from her right, and she turned to see a woman, gray haired and dirty, laying against the wall. Her head was tilted back, eyes shut so tightly that the skin around them was red with strain. A low, buzzing sound was escaping her white lips, and her icy fingers were clenched into two fists, knuckles whitening as she tightened her grip further. The words that met the ears as a hum were unintelligible, and people were passing by without a single glance at the woman sitting there, in an obvious state of pain or mourning, or something unbearable. Angelina turned sharply on her heal, and walked gingerly through the ever moving mass of people to the woman, although when she approached, she didn't look up, or even open her eyes.

"Ma'am," she said. No answer, just a continuous bombinating. Stepping close, Angelina spoke again, with more volume.

"Ma'am, is everything alright?" To this the woman's snapped open, and the noise was abruptly cut off.

"What do you care?" she spat, over-enunciating her t's and drenching her voice with animosity. Her eyes were bloodshot, rampant with antipathy, wild with a horrible amount of hate. She was staring straight into the eyes of Angelina, who stood, not taken aback in the slightest by her words. She had expected as much. She had to have been through such nefarious things to get to where she is now, and for that alone, she held Angelina's complete and utter respect.

"I can't begin to understand the astounding things you've gone through, but I can understand human cruelty," Angelina said, walking to the woman's side and sliding down the brick wall so that she was sitting next to her. The woman kept her eyes forward, and breathed heavily. She didn't respond to Angelina's statement for a long moment filled with scrutinizing glances from passersby's.

"She looked like you," the woman said, her voice vacillating. "The brown eyes. Except hers were lighter, much lighter. And the hair. She had this passion for art, she would draw just about anything," she continued. Her voice was fragile, breakable, as she smiled slightly at her most precious memories. Her eyes were glazed over, and it was as if she was talking to herself. "She held the most cherubic of youths, the most philosophical way of looking at the world. The divinity that possessed her was… unreal," Her voice cracked on her last word, and her voice began to shake with more intensity. Angelina was listening intently, staring straight ahead, keeping her face absent of any emotion that flowed through her.

"How could someone of such kindness, such, such innocence be treated so opprobrious by fate?" she choked. "My daughter, my poor daughter, it's my fault! She would have been 21 today! And yet I'm still here, I don't deserve it!" She wailed, she was crying, relentless tears falling down her wrinkled face. She suddenly let her head tilt so it was resting on Angelina's shoulder. Angelina could feel to tears soaking through her coat, but they were warm, comforting almost. After sitting there for a long time, letting the woman cry on her shoulder and trying not to cry herself, the woman looked t her.

"Her name was Raychell. She was the only thing that kept me going." She stated, gravely. All emotion drained from her voice, but tears were still sparkling in her tear ducts.

"Beautiful name," Angelina said, her voice deliquescent, fluidic. The respect for the woman had only grown since she had sat down; she did not care what anyone cared about her, she payed no mind to the abhor looks she got from people, or the judgmental murmurs of the crowd. Angelina had never met this woman before in her life, but she was intrigued by unmarred emotion and otherworldly doctrine. She could pin point her exact level of natural intelligence just by the way she spoke.

"Yes," The woman said, just a whisper of desperation.

Angelina turned to her, taking the woman's face in her hands. "There is nothing anyone, not even fate, can do to hurt you anymore. You have suffered through things predominant to most peoples nightmares, I can tell by the scared set of your eyes. And if nothing can hurt you, then don't be afraid. Only cowards are afraid, and you, my acquaintance, are antagonistic of a coward, that I can promise," Angelina stated. She stood up and dug through her bag for a moment before placing a small golden cross in the old woman's hand, and closing her cold fingers around it. With that, she walked back into the crowd, disappearing into the masses. The woman watched the crowd where she had disappeared for a very long time, her mind stuck in a state of eidolon and her heart hanging on by a minuscule thread that had been ready to break before God had sent her a cherub, and angel.

But Angelina knew she was far from an angel.

Her heart was swelling with… something. She didn't quite know what. The woman's face had crushed her, but the look in her eyes when Angelina had walked away was somewhat _hopeful. _She smiled to herself as she continued on her way.

When she arrived at the dilapidated old building that had been indicated as her destination, anxiety edged its way into the blur that was her emotions. She made her way up the stairs that creaked with each step, no matter how light, wondering why this was the chosen meeting place. The walls were made of black panels of wood, and the staircase was increasingly steep, and dark.

"Cedric," she hollered, hoping for a quick response. When there was no answer, she tried again. And again. No response. Finally making it up to the top of the stairs, she expected to see him sleeping, or something alike. But it was empty, devoid, forsaken.

And then, all at once, it wasn't. A loud crash signified someone was there. The crash was boisterous to her ears, and sent a surge of electrical fear throughout her whole body. Before she had a chance to run, yell, do anything, something had her.

A gloved hand clasped over her mouth in a surprisingly strong grip that was equally as painful both physically and mentally. Her struggles were in vain, for the arms that had her were strong. Fighting to get oxygen through the airtight grasp of the unknown person, her vision began to fade as the burning in her lungs became more prominent. A loud noise, like a drum, was sounding in her ears, and everything was turning a blotchy shade of purple. Her toil to be released was even more pathetic now, her legs becoming limp like that of a doll. Then it was black, there was no noise, no burning, no gloved hand clogging her airways. Just calm.


End file.
